Free Keeplock: A Novel of Crime by Stephen Solomita

with Eddie Conte, I practiced a natural gait as I made my way down Ninth Avenue.
    “Dope-n-coke. Dope-n-coke.” The dealer stood back in the shuttered doorway of a freight elevator, offering his wares the way an aggressive panhandler offers his cup. I was tempted for a minute. A little dope to ease the pain; a few lines of coke to make me alert. I couldn’t tell you why it mattered, but I walked on by. Maybe it was the part I was going to have to play with Eddie. I’d already told him I was subject to Intense Supervision, and if I walked into the restaurant stoned, there was always the chance that he’d notice. Or maybe I was still holding on to my fantasies.
    Eddie Conte had been the undisputed leader of our crew in Cortlandt. He had a sharp Roman nose and he kept it tuned to the prison rumor mill, avoiding trouble when he could, making alliances when he couldn’t. “Fix it before it breaks, cuz,” he’d instructed. “Sniff it out and fix it up.”
    I recalled an incident in 1987 when a white prisoner named Andy Grant got into a beef with a Black Muslim. A few other Muslims had joined in to protect their brother and Andy caught a shank in the process. The entire white population took it personally, and the next day the yard was packed with armed men, blacks on one side, whites and Puerto Ricans on the other.
    The administration showed good sense for a change. They could’ve waited for the show to start, then opened up from the guard towers, but instead they defused the situation. They chose one black con and one white con to talk things over. The black prisoner was the Muslim Imam, Tariq Muhammad. The white prisoner was Eddie Conte.
    The further I walked, the more determined I became. I didn’t want any part of Eddie Conte and whatever he was planning to do to the world, but I wasn’t a rat. If I sold Eddie out, I wouldn’t be any better than a nurse stealing dope from a dying prisoner.
    Not that I was in a good spot. Not only couldn’t I turn Eddie down, even if his plan was idiotic, even if it was guaranteed to send both of us back to Cortlandt, I was going to have to invent some kind of bullshit for the two cops. Two sets of lies to keep straight, two sets of professional paranoids to fool. A decent performance would buy me time, which was all I could hope for.
    Mario’s was packed and the short, fat man who approached me was already shaking his bald head as he took in my prison haircut.
    “Do you have a reservation, sir?”
    “I’m supposed to meet someone here.”
    His expression changed instantly, a quick professional smile erasing the frown. “Are you Mr. Conte’s guest?”
    “That’s me.” I ignored the Mr. Conte bullshit. The fat proprietor was probably one of Eddie’s gombahs. Eddie had spent his whole life doing time for the mob. He didn’t have to go to a stranger for an Italian dinner.
    “Please. Come.” He led me through the crowded dining room, weaving between tables with the freaky grace of a dancing bear. A door in the back, just off the kitchen, led into a small private room. Two women sat by themselves at a table in the far corner. Eddie’s table was in the center of the room. He was pulling on a Heineken.
    “Hey, Mario, I see you didn’t have no trouble findin’ my cuz.” Eddie had a small, thin mouth. Set underneath that nose, it had a tendency to disappear altogether, but this time his grin was so broad that I could count his teeth.
    “Naw, Eddie. He’s as good-lookin’ as ya said he was.”
    I blushed. I couldn’t help it. My pretty-boy face had gotten me into more beefs than everything else put together, especially when I was young. Eventually I’d accumulated enough scars and made enough friends to be left alone, but the adolescent joints, Rikers and Spofford, had been rough. I’d also learned to use my looks to good advantage, practicing my innocent choir boy smile until I could melt a rich old lady’s heart at fifty paces.
    I raised a clenched fist. “One